The PicoScope 9400 Series SXRTOs are a new class of oscilloscopes that combine the benefits of real-time sampling, random equivalent-time sampling and high analog bandwidth:

The PicoScope 9400 Series sampler-extended real-time oscilloscopes (SXRTOs) have two or four high-bandwidth 50 Ω input channels with market-leading ADC, timing and display resolutions for accurately measuring and visualizing high-speed analog and data signals. They are ideal for capturing pulse and step transitions down to 22 ps, impulse down to 100 ps, and clocks and data eyes to 8 Gb/s (with optional clock recovery).

The PicoScope SXRTOs offer random sampling, which can readily analyze high-bandwidth applications that involve repetitive signals or clock-related streams. Unlike other sampling methods, random sampling allows capture of pre-trigger data and does not require a separate clock input.

The SXRTO is fast, with quick generation of random sampling waveforms, persistence displays and statistics. The PicoScope 9400 Series has a built-in internal trigger on every channel, with pre-trigger random sampling to well above the Nyquist (real-time) sampling rate. Bandwidth is up to 16 GHz behind a 50 Ω SMA(f) input, and three acquisition modes—real-time, random and roll—all capture at 12-bit resolution into a shared memory of up to 250 kS.

The PicoSample 4 software is derived from our existing PicoSample 3 sampling oscilloscope software, which embodies over ten years of development, customer feedback and optimization.

The display can be resized to fit any window and fully utilize available display resolution, 4K and even larger or across multiple monitors. Four independent zoom channels can show you different views of your data down to a resolution of 0.4 ps. Most of the controls and status panels can be shown or hidden according to your application, allowing you to make optimal use of the display area.

A 2.5 GHz direct trigger can be driven from any input channel, and a built-in divider can extend the off-channel trigger bandwidth to 5 GHz. On the 16 GHz models, a further external prescaled trigger input allows stable trigger from signals of up to 16 GHz bandwidth and, from the internal triggers, recovered clock trigger is available (if optional clock recovery is fitted) at up to 8 Gb/s. With this option, recovered clock and data are both available on SMA outputs on the rear panel. The price you pay for your PicoScope SXRTO is the price you pay for everything – we don’t charge you for software features or updates.

These compact units are small enough to place on your workbench close to the device under test. Now, instead of using remote probe heads attached to a large benchtop unit, all you need is a short, low-loss coaxial cable. Everything else you need is built into the oscilloscope, with no expensive hardware or software add-ons to worry about, and we don’t charge you for new software features and updates.

Typical applications

• Telecom and radar test, service and manufacturing
• Optical fiber, transceiver and laser testing (optical to electrical conversion not included)
• RF, microwave and gigabit digital system measurements
• Signal, eye, pulse and impulse characterization
• Precision timing and phase analysis
• Digital system design and characterization
• Eye diagram, mask and limits test up to 8 Gb/s
• Clock and data recovery at up to 8 Gb/s
• Ethernet, HDMI 1, PCI, SATA and USB 2.0
• Semiconductor characterization
• Signal, data and pulse/impulse integrity and pre-compliance testing

High-bandwidth probes

The PicoConnect 900 Series low-impedance, high-bandwidth probes are ideal companions for the PicoScope 9400 Series, allowing cost-effective fingertip browsing of fast signals. Two series are available:

• RF, microwave and pulse probes for broadband signals up to 5 GHz (10 Gb/s)
• Gigabit probes for data streams such as USB 2, HDMI 1, Ethernet, PCIe and SATA

Other features

Bandwidth limit filters

A selectable analog bandwidth limiter (100 or 450 MHz, model-dependent) on each input channel can be used to reject high frequencies and associated noise. The narrow setting can be used as an anti-alias filter in real-time sampling modes.

Frequency counter

A built-in fast and accurate frequency counter shows signal frequency (or period) at all times, regardless of measurement and timebase settings and with a resolution of 1 ppm.

Clock and data recovery

Clock and data recovery (CDR) is now available as a factory-fit optional trigger feature on all models.

Associated with high-speed serial data applications, clock and data recovery will already be familiar to PicoScope 9300 users. While low-speed serial data can often be accompanied by its clock as a separate signal, at high speed this approach would accumulate timing skew and jitter between the clock and the data that could prevent accurate data decode. Thus high-speed data receivers will generate a new clock, and using a phase-locked loop technique they will lock and align that new clock to the incoming data stream. This is the recovered clock and it can be used to decode and thus recover data accurately. We have also saved the cost of an entire clock signal path by now needing only the serial data signal.

In many applications requiring our oscilloscopes to view the data, the data generator and its clock will be close at hand and we can trigger off that clock. However, if only the data is available (at the far end of an optical fiber for instance), we will need the CDR option to recover the clock and then trigger off that instead. We may also need to use the CDR option in demanding eye and jitter measurements. This is because we want our instrument to measure as exactly as possible the signal quality that a recovered clock and data receiver will see.

When fitted, the PicoScope 9400 CDR option can be selected as the trigger source from any input channel. Additionally, for use by other instruments or by downstream system elements, two SMA(f) outputs present recovered clock and recovered data on the rear panel.

If you require clock recovery, click the button below to contact us.

The basic real-time oscilloscope

Real-time oscilloscopes (RTOs) are designed with a high enough sampling rate to capture a transient, non-repetitive signal with the instrument’s specified analog bandwidth. This will reveal a minimum width impulse, but is far from satisfactory in revealing its shape, let alone measurements and characterization. Typical high-bandwidth RTOs exceed this sampling rate by perhaps a factor of two, achieving up to four samples per cycle, or three samples in a minimum-width impulse.

Random sampling

For signals close to or above the RTO’s Nyquist limit, many RTOs can switch to a mode called random sampling. In this mode the scope collects as many samples as it can for each of many trigger events, each trigger contributing more and more samples and detail in a reconstructed waveform. Critical to alignment of these samples is a separate and precise measurement of time between each trigger and the next occurring sample clock.

After a large number of trigger events the scope has enough samples to display the waveform with the desired time resolution. This is called the effective sampling resolution (the inverse of the effective sampling rate), which is many times higher than is possible in real-time mode.

This technique relies on a random relationship between trigger events and the sampling clock, and can only be used for repetitive signals – those with relatively stable waveshape around the trigger event.

The sampler-extended real-time oscilloscope (SXRTO)

The maximum effective sampling rate of the PicoScope 9400 16 GHz models is 2.5 TS/s, with a timing resolution of 0.4 ps, which is 5000 times higher than the scope's actual sampling rate.

With an analog bandwidth of up to 16 GHz, these SXRTOs would require a sampling rate exceeeding 32 GS/s to meet Nyquist's criterion and somewhat more than this (perhaps 80 GS/s) to reveal wave and pulse shapes.

Using random sampling, the 16 GHz models give us 156 sample points in a single cycle at the scope's rated bandwidth or a generous 55 samples between 10% and 90% of its fastest transition time.

So is the SXRTO a sampling scope?

All this talk of sampling rates and sampling modes may suggest that the SXRTO is a type of sampling scope, but this is not the case. The name sampling scope, by convention, refers to a different kind of instrument. A sampling scope uses a programmable delay generator to take samples at regular intervals after each trigger event. The technique is called sequential equivalent-time sampling and is the principle behind the PicoScope 9300 Series sampling scopes. These scopes can achieve very high effective sampling rates but have two main drawbacks: they cannot capture data before the trigger event, and they require a separate trigger signal – either from an external source or from a built-in clock-recovery module.

We’ve compiled a table to show the differences between the types of scopes mentioned on this page. The example products are all compact, 4-channel, USB PicoScopes.

Application-configurable PicoSample 4 oscilloscope software

The PicoSample 4 workspace takes full advantage of your available single or multiple display size and resolution, allowing you to resize the window to fit any display resolution supported by Windows.

You decide how much space to give to the trace display and the measurements display, and whether to open or hide the control menus. The user interface is fully touch- or mouse-operable, with grabbing and dragging of traces, cursors, regions and parameters. In touchscreen mode, an enlarged parameter control is displayed to assist adjustments on smaller touchscreen displays.

To zoom, either draw a zoom window or use the numerical zoom and offset controls. You can display up to four different zoomed views of the displayed waveforms.

“Hidden trace” icons show a live view of any channels that are not currently on the main display.

The interaction of timebase, sampling rate and capture size is normally handled automatically, but there is also an option to override this and specify the order of priority of these three parameters.

A choice of screen formats

When working with multiple traces, you can display them all on one grid or separate them into two or four grids. You can also plot signals in XY mode with or without additional voltage-time grids. The persistence display modes use color-contouring or shading to show statistical variations in the signal. Trace display can be in either dots-only or vector format and all these display settings can be independent, trace by trace. Custom trace labeling is also available.

Measurements

Standard waveforms and eye parameters

The PicoScope 9400 Series scopes quickly measure well over 40 standard waveforms and over 70 eye parameters, either for the whole waveform or gated between markers. The markers can also make on-screen ruler measurements, so you don't need to count graticules or estimate the waveform's position. Up to ten simultaneous measurements are possible. The measurements conform to IEEE standard definitions, but you can edit them for non-standard thresholds and reference levels using the advanced menu, or by dragging the on-screen thresholds and levels. You can apply limit tests to up to four measured parameters.

Waveform measurements with statistics

Waveform parameters can be measured in both X and Y axes including X period, frequency, negative or positive cross and jitter. In the Y axis measurements such as max, min, DC RMS and cycle mean are available. Measurements can be within a single trace or trace-to-trace such as phase, delay and gain.

Selection of a measurement parameter displays its values, thresholds and bounds on the main display.

Eye diagram measurements

The PicoScope 9400 Series scopes quickly measure more than 70 fundamental parameters used to characterize non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signals and return-to-zero (RZ) signals.

Eye diagram analysis can display data including: bit rate, period, crossing time, frequency, eye width, eye amplitude, mean, area and jitter RMS. Also shown on the graph are left and right RMS jitter markers. These measurements are selectable from within the Eye Diagram side menu and are listed on screen below the graph. 

The measurement points and levels used to generate each parameter can optionally be drawn on the trace.

Mask testing

PicoSample 4 has a built-in library of over 130 masks for testing data eyes. It can count or capture mask hits or route them to an alarm or acquisition control. You can stress-test against a mask using a specified margin, and locally compile or edit masks.

There’s a choice of gray-scale and color-graded display modes, and a histogramming feature, all of which aid in analyzing noise and jitter in eye diagrams. There is also a statistical display showing a failure count for both the original mask and the margin.

The extensive menu of built-in test waveforms is invaluable for checking your mask test setup before using it on live signals.

Powerful mathematical analysis

The PicoScope 9400 Series scopes support up to four simultaneous mathematical combinations or functional transformations of acquired waveforms.

You can select any of the mathematical functions to operate on either one or two sources. All functions can operate on live waveforms, waveform memories or even other functions. There is also a comprehensive equation editor for creating custom functions of any combination of source waveforms.

Choose from 60 math functions including:

• add, subtract, multiply, divide, invert, absolute, exponent, logarithm, differentiate, integrate, inverse, FFT, interpolation, smoothing, trending, custom formula

Trending

Trending allows you to plot a measured time parameter, such as pulse width, period or transition time as an additional trace.

FFT analysis

All PicoScope 9400 Series oscilloscopes can calculate real, imaginary and complex Fast Fourier and Inverse Fast Fourier Transforms of input signals using a range of windowing functions. The results can be further processed using the math functions. FFTs are useful for finding crosstalk and distortion problems, adjusting filter circuits, testing system impulse responses and identifying and locating noise and interference sources.

Histogram analysis

Behind the powerful measurement and display capabilities of the 9400 Series lies a fast, efficient data histogram capability. A powerful visualization and analysis tool in its own right, the histogram is a probability graph that shows the distribution of acquired data from a source within a user-definable window.

Histograms can be constructed on waveforms on either the vertical or horizontal axes. The most common use for a vertical histogram is measuring and characterizing noise and pulse parameters. A horizontal histogram is typically used to measure and characterize jitter.

Envelope acquisition

Pulsed RF carriers lie at the heart of our modern communications infrastructures, yet the shape, aberrations and timings of the final carrier pulse (at an antenna, for example) can be challenging to measure. If we choose demodulation, we are subject to the limitations of the demodulator; its bandwidth and distortions.

Envelope acquisition mode allows waveform acquisition and display showing the peak values of repeated acquisitions over a period of time.

Shown here on a PicoScope 9404 SXRTO is a real time capture of pulsed amplitude 2.4 GHz carrier.

The yellow trace is an alias of the 2.4 GHz carrier displayed at a timebase of 100 μs/div. The blue trace, offset slightly for clarity, is a Max Envelope capture of the yellow trace.

The enveloped waveform shows the maximum excursions of the carrier envelope and its pulse parameters can then be measured (bottom left of the image).

This measurement is limited by the maximum real time sampling rate of the SXRTO (500 MS/s) and so has a Nyquist demodulation bandwidth of 250 MHz. Three other channels on the oscilloscope remain available to monitor, for example, modulating data and power supply voltages or currents feeding to the sourcing RF power amplifier.

Segmented acquisition mode

Segmented acquisition mode in the Acquire menu partitions the available trace memory length into multiple trace lengths (segments or buffers). Up to 1024 traces can then be captured and either layered or individually selected to display on screen. This is helpful for capturing and viewing rarely occurring events.

Having captured an anomalous event you can scroll through, or close gates around, an ever smaller block of overlaid traces, until the anomalous trace or traces are found. There is also a segment finder, which uses a binary search method to address larger numbers of trace segments.

Software Development Kit

The PicoSample 4 software can operate as a standalone oscilloscope program or under ActiveX remote control. The ActiveX control conforms to the Windows COM interface standard so that you can embed it in your own software. Unlike more complex driver-based programming methods, ActiveX commands are text strings that are easy to create in any programming environment. Programming examples are provided in Visual Basic (VB.NET), MATLAB, LabVIEW and Delphi, but you can use any programming language or standard that supports the COM interface, including JavaScript and C. National Instruments LabVIEW drivers are also available. All the functions of the PicoScope 9400 and the PicoSample 4 software are accessible remotely.

We supply a comprehensive programmer’s guide that details every function of the ActiveX control. The SDK can control the oscilloscope over the USB or (on four-channel models) the LAN port.